defence

Kim Howells is chairman of the intelligence and security committee responsible for overseeing the security services. He was the Secretary of State for Defence for three-and-a-half years until the October government reshuffle. In an interview in the Guardian he says:

"Institutionally, Afghanistan is corrupt from top to bottom. There are few signs that the chaotic hegemony of warlords, gangsters, presidential placemen, incompetent and under-resourced provincial governors and self-serving government ministers has been challenged in any effective way by President Karzai."

170 deaths so farRemember the wars? There's one in Iraq. One minute we're transferring areas to local supervision and everything is going to plan and the next minute the British army is hunkered down, being bombed at will and living in tents. Our last Leader said that he'd supply anything the army requested.The problem is that the procurement services seem to get all the wrong sorts of equipment or run out of money. We have had innumerable deaths and injuries from our soldiers being sent out in a variety of unarmoured or unsuitable vehicles such as the notorious snatch vehicles.